Counselling Services and Management of Drug Abuse among Students in Bahati Division, Kenya

Drug abuse among secondary school students in Kenyan schools has been on the increase and
identified as one of the major causes of indiscipline and unrest in schools. The marked increase in
consumption of both illegal and legal drugs in our schools is continually highlighted in the local press
media. The Ministry of Education and National Campaign against Drugs Abuse (NACADA) have
shown great concern about this menace. This book chapter describe a research study that sought to
determine the influence of counselling on management of students’ drug abuse with special reference
to Bahati Division in Nakuru District, Kenya. The study adopted an ex-post facto research design. It
targeted all the 47 secondary schools with a student population of 7767 students and 472 teachers in
the area. A random sample of 120 students, ten teacher counsellors and ten head teachers were
selected from the ten schools. Data was collected through administration of questionnaires with the
selected respondents. The collected data was then processed and analysed using descriptive
statistics with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 11.5 for windows. The
study established the following findings. Cheap and easily available drugs were the most commonly
used types of drugs and were also considered as legal and generally accepted in the society. Proper
implementation and utilization of counselling services had a positive effect in the management of drug
abuse among secondary school students. Counselling services did reduce the level of drug taking in
schools. The study recommended that there is a need of emphasizing more on counselling as an
effective mechanism of managing drug abuse among secondary school students and that counselling
should target the most vulnerable group of students in order to minimize the vice in schools.